Double-digging: or, a word about process

[desperance]

It's a curious process, this redrafting affair. What I'm engaged on now, this one should be easy, as I've only been asked to cut the text, and only where my style is too obtrusive or repetitive, where I'm dwelling too long in the language (personally, I assert that it's not repetition, it's escalation: but editors, what do they know...?). Even so, this will take me longer than I think, much longer than I think it ought.

It works like this: first thing I do, I print out the last draft, because I can't work on screen. I'll tell you that, any time you care to ask.

Usually, I take that draft elsewhere, Out Of The House. Because I don't have anywhere in the house that's suitable, I'll tell you that too, boldly ignoring my large dining-room table. Mostly I take it to the Lit & Phil, or else to the pub (depending on the time of day, largely; I often migrate from the one to the other, just at that point where coffee migrates into beer).

Then I sit with coffee or beer and nibbles, pen in hand and draft on the table; and I read, and mull, and scribble. And it takes longer than you'd think, or at least longer than I think; today, f'rexample, I was in there, oh, an hour and a half? And I read & scribbled on 34 pages. 11,000 words, give or take. At that rate, there's fifteen hours of work to be done just in this stage.

Then I bring it home and put my scribbled pages on the desk, open up the file and start going through them - but I don't only look at the scribbled bits, and I don't simply transcribe my scribbles. It's not like that. As often as not, all the scribbles mean is "make this better!" (if I haven't found a better version staring me in the face as I read it through, if all that struck me was the awfulness of what was). So I read everything again on screen, and I reconsider all my scribbles and also those parts that were unscribbled, and I make changes; and it all takes longer than it did before, and way longer than I hoped. F'rexample, I've done half an hour here, and haven't finished five pages yet.

At that rate, there's another 35 hours of work in this stage. Which means 50 hours altogether, more or less, give or take. For a comparatively simple cut-and-polish, being done entirely on spec. And what waits me after this is a major reworking, on a manuscript twice as long and not half as finished as this is. And they both need to be done before Christmas. And I need to write a new short story, too.

I work too hard, and I don't get paid enough. By distances.

Um, I dunno: does everybody do it this way, or am I unique? Perverse, even...?

Comments

[kateelliott.livejournal.com]

The line editing process for me is quite slow and I'm not very good at it; in some ways it is the slowest part of the entire process. While I do some of it on screen just while passing through, I must do two sweeps through the ms printed out - usually one print out, one sweep together with revisions - and then a second print out for a second sweep. It takes forever.

Whether you're perverse is a different question, isn't it?

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Whether you're perverse is a different question, isn't it?

Yup. I was just trying to sneak it in there, raise a chorus of noes on the substantive question and ride the other through on the elision. Damn, you've rumbled me. Aren't you supposed to be toasting in the Hawaiian sun or something...?

[kateelliott.livejournal.com]

it's overcast and gloomy today, raining so much I could not even take the dog for a walk! Wah! No I'm off to the gym.

[kateelliott.livejournal.com]

NoW

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

I'm only a new pro, so my version may not be very useful. However, I have been asked to lengthen the book. So: I printed out two copies, one of the current version and one of an older, longer version, plus my outtake file, and sat down to read them in tandem. I did this with lots of red ink, lots of writing on the versos and with lots of those post-it note markers sticking out the sides to flag up big stuff -- like places where my editor wanted new scenes or scenes to be radically revised. Since then, I've been sitting with the marked up text altering, reshaping, revising etc into yet another version (this one on the computer), plus writing new scenes either in notebooks or into yet more new files... pus then there's a file with the editor's comments and a silly number of scraps of paper and other such items onto which I've scrawled lines of dialogue, ideas, phrases etc etc etc. My desk is a mess and I've sure I've forgotten something major... And I read two books on editing oneself, one of which was okay but not useful and the other of which was noddy, patronising and has given me a complex about where to put the word 'said'.Per this work, subject must *always* precede 'said' on the grounds that 'said he' is old-fashioned and therefore 'said John' must be too.) This offends me hugely as the placing of words has to do with rhythm as well as silly value-judgments -- words have to feel right -- but it's in my head now along with all the other irritants. And I haven't even had the line edits yet, which is where I suspect my prose (which tends to the Latinate and the long) will get kicked.

[julesjones]

I write "John said", for pretty much the reason quoted. predatrix is firmly in the "said John" camp. And thus there is much fun to be had on joint pieces, going through and seeing whether it jars horribly anywhere around switches on who was doing the typing. (Yes, I mean typing, not writing, given our VOIP method of working.)

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

"I write "John said", for pretty much the reason quoted. predatrix is firmly in the "said John" camp."

Fascinating. May I ask if you've always done this, or if it's developed through something you read or were told? To me, there is a slight difference in emphasis (and thus in meaning) between 'said John' and 'John said', so that I use them deliberately. I hear my words and 'That's it,' said John sounds more final and determined to me than 'That's it,' John said -- the latter seems to me to need a successor clause. ['That's it,' John said, 'we need a new wombat.']
I haven't done a lot of collaboration in writing (apart from non-fiction, which is different), but the main problem I've found with my fiction co-author is that she tends to refer to characters more formally than I do -- and it matters to her as a point of intimacy versus distance. I on the other hand see name-use mainly as an issue of consistency. As many beliefs as writers, I guess.

[julesjones]

Osmosis through mostly reading stuff in that style, I think. I don't remember being told to do it that way. It's not something I'd *always* do, and I think that someone who insisted that it must always be that way was sticking rather too rigidly to a taught rule; but I'd default to "John said" where there was no specific reason to use one or the other, and use only "said John" in the same places where I'd feel it appropriate to use "said he", or where it's clearly a better rhythm.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

That makes sense. Thank you!

[desperance.livejournal.com]

'That's it,' said John sounds more final and determined to me than 'That's it,' John said -- the latter seems to me to need a successor clause. ['That's it,' John said, 'we need a new wombat.']

And this, of course, is not even to raise the question of 'John said, "That's it."' Which is a pattern I find myself using more and more.

Also, I think there should be more wombats, generally. New or otherwise.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

Wombats are good (said she...)
I now have a cat in my face: Horus has decided to help. He appears not to have an opinion on wombats (but he does have one on his tea).
John said... Hadn't thought about that one. A quick page flick suggests I'm mainly using it at the start of conversations or after pauses. Now I really have a 'said' complex...

[julesjones]

And this, of course, is not even to raise the question of 'John said, "That's it."' Which is a pattern I find myself using more and more.

Ditto. Of course, this is in part because
a) I have the Great Pronoun Problem inherent in writing romance novels where both (or all) the protagonists are of the same gender
b) it has been suggested by more than one person that I appear to hear my story as a radio play rather than seeing it as as a film. Hence the cues I use to indicate who's speaking aren't necessarily what a lot of readers expect to be given.
Hence the need to state up front at the beginning of a paragraph who's speaking...

Wombats are good, as long as they're not in the middle of the road. In a wombat/car face-off, the car will not emerge unscathed.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

In a wombat/car face-off, the car will not emerge unscathed.

Nor should it! Impertinent objects, cars. In any such face-off, I am firmly on the side of the wombat.

Did you know Rossetti had a wombat (http://www.nla.gov.au/grants/haroldwhite/papers/atrumble.html)?

[julesjones]

No. That's a delightful story. :-)

[julesjones]

You're perverse, dear. This is why we love you.

No, I don't normally do massive amounts of redrafting and polishing once I've got to the end, in part because I spend entirely too much time doing it while I'm writing the thing. I'd suspect it of being a species of cat-vacuuming, only it does seem to help me mull over what I want to write next.

[martyn44.livejournal.com]

Sounds a familiar tale, certainly with regard to the one(s) I'm working on at the moment. Doesn't seem to matter what depth of outline I've done (none for the one(s) I'm working on) Draft 2 involves a lot of red pen (on the ms) and blue pen (on the lined paper) followed by a lot more typing. Then its time for the Michaelangelo moment.

Cue hysterical laughter.

And there are no cats in this household.

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

*clutches her marked-up manuscript with notes that say "Make this better" on it, and stalks off to the computer to do that*

I donno what you're talkin' about.